Grubernomics

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Surprise! Under Obama, Washington DC has grown faster than any state!

In moving into Washington at this juncture of history, you’ve joined a long, proud tradition. New Deal liberals, Great Society dreamers, and Clinton-era wonks all helped transform the various District neighborhoods they called home.

But here in the Obama era, your generation of gentrifiers has become a force far stronger than any prior class of arriviste. In the most recent 18-month period cited by the U.S. Census Bureau, pokey old D.C. has grown more than any state, adding 2.7 percent to a population that not so long ago was shrinking reliably. That population bump is equal to half of the total growth in the previous ten years.

And, according to Uncle Sam, some three-quarters of the newcomers were in what vendors of up-market dessert products, vintage furniture, and digitally-enabled transportation services know as the demographically attractive 18-to-34 year old range.

Perhaps you didn’t know this before you plunked down some actuarially unsound multiple of your household income on that gorgeous-but-tattered rowhouse in the middle of some forlorn-but-improving block, but in buying into Washington, you’ve bought into the single greatest divide in local politics.

On one side: enthusiastic residents who know that an influx of comparatively affluent newbies adds up to the critical mass required to support the kinds of commercial amenities—little restaurants in Petworth, big Whole Foods stores in Logan Circle—for which they used to have to travel to the suburbs, or entirely different cities. On the other: wary residents who worry that you’ll either price them out of their homes or reshape D.C. around a lifestyle they never signed up for.

Sandra Fluke: ‘‘I’d rather be a captive Nigerian girl than touched by a Republican’’ (This is a spoof site.)

This week's reading

Powell takes readers through a series of disturbing events, missteps, and cover-ups in our federal criminal justice system. According to Powell, the malfeasance stretches across all three branches of our government — from the White House to the U.S. Senate, to members of the judiciary. Even worse, the law itself is becoming pernicious. Americans can now be prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for actions that are not crimes. And if acquitted, there is no recourse against prosecutors who hid evidence vital to the defense. Join us for a discussion of these distressing legal trends and what might be done about them.

Mo' Money!

2014 - a "fixed" Obamacare website becomes self-aware, decides the best way to cure human illness is to wipe out humans, launches ICBMs

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Don't spy on me

Congress Grifters

What they left out of the movie "2016"

2015 - 17 year old Malia Obama starts dating newly single Anthony Weiner. When her dad grounds her, she says she is being "taken hostage."